


Make a Deal With God

by crankyoldman



Category: Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Multi, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-21
Updated: 2011-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/pseuds/crankyoldman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes confronting your villains doesn't turn into the epic battle it should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make a Deal With God

**Author's Note:**

> I can safely blame this on a lack of sleep and a close call with some almost heat-stroke. And yes, Veld refers to her as Elfe by now, _she insists_. I kind of really want Elfe to meet Lu now. This may happen. This is set right before Dirge and assumes that it will happen.

"You and I need to talk."

Veld couldn't help tracking Valentine.The existence of the man was a bad habit, and all he'd seen him do was go back and forth from this cave. He'd never breached his privacy to the point of listening in, and half the time he wasn't physically there. Valentine had been dead so long that maybe he wanted some proof he was alive, some intel before he could actually speak to the man.

And he needed to talk to _her_ first.

"What is it with you people and sleeping. It doesn't stop shit from happening to everyone else. If you ask me, it's goddamn selfish."

She didn't move, of course. Veld had thought that maybe she talked to him, at the very least. It was all the more disturbing an indicator of the kid's mental state if this is what he came to talk to.

Then again, he wasn't doing any better. "I blame you, by the way."

 _For which part._

Veld had mostly stopped drinking the heavier stuff upon Elfe's insistence, and with that knew that he didn't have any excuse to hallucinate. Considering his type of crazy, this was comforting.

"So you do speak."

Only her face gained some color, and she opened her eyes and parted her lips. It had been a very long time since Veld had looked at Lucrecia, and after having worked briefly with her son, he could see the striking resemblance with them now. Funny how they both seemed to spawn children that so visually reminded them of their connections. Like she was the cold matriarch of worldwide destruction and he the patriarch of rebellions.

"I expected to see Hojo here before I saw you, Veld. You look old."

"Not everyone goes for the sleeping beauty treatment."

"Have you come here to judge me or get into a battle of wits? Tell me what I have done to offend you so greatly or leave."

He had come there to unload it all. Valentine's involvement with the Project, Ifalna's unwillingness to leave it, Hojo's spiral out of reason, hell, he had found a logical way to blame her for Kalm too.

Veld found himself unable to utter any of it. "You know, I had a long list of things to blame you for. But you want know the truth? I barely fucking know you."

She smirked. "We did tend to be rather preoccupied with other things, didn't we?"

He'd expected a passive audience for his frustrations. He hadn't expected that Lucrecia had just as badly needed to talk as he did. There were a lot of things that Elfe had asked about, but she didn't have the slightest clue to even imagine this part of his life. He'd promised her truth, but Veld first needed to sort out what had been real and what had been years of grief and anger building lies he told himself to get out of bed in the morning.

"I know Hojo though, and that clusterfuck can't entirely have been his hubris."

Her smirk disappeared. "I did... miscalculate."

"And how."

It was like a game of confessional chicken now. Veld had forgone asking certain things of Hojo, because there was a good chance he'd try to kill the man. And he couldn't kill his only tie to the old days. The days he'd been unable to let go of. But there was no holding onto a woman made of ice, and he wasn't quite brave enough to go and face any ghosts yet.

"Do you have any children, Veld?"

She broke it first. It had been a long time since she'd had a conversation for her to break that quickly. The few interaction they'd had were either the empty sorts of flirtations that attractive people who have no interest in each other have, or him being catty when he realized Valentine's fondness for her. He wasn't going to even touch whatever had been between Lucrecia and Ifalna.

"A daughter."

"When did she change you?"

"At her birth."

"Did you anticipate the way that her very existence would change you, turn your life completely upside down? Did you hold her and imagine all the possibilities you just unleashed?"

"I think I almost passed out." He was uncomfortable with the regret in her voice, because she had made a much better villain in his head. Like the time he'd found Hojo in the lab with the scalpels, half delirious from blood loss and asking Veld if his wife was still outside _with him_ and could she get inside please...

"I didn't get that moment. I never even met him, really. I was told he had died, and then he really did die."

Veld didn't feel sorry for being angry at her. He was frankly angry at all of them from his generation, for leaving him alone and ill-equipped to handle the next. But there was no amount of blame he could lay at her feet that she hadn't already encased herself in.

"I think I really did come here to judge. And my judgment is you need to get out of here and get living. _Anything_ but this."

She looked at him as if he were mad and he almost wanted to laugh.

"I think there's a future out there, if you're willing to go step outside and look at it." So he was almost directly quoting his daughter. Elfe didn't handle things like he did. She _did_ them. Lara had raised her with a hopefulness that he couldn't quite duplicate.

He found himself whistling as he walked out of the cave, giving Lucrecia a small wave in parting. Veld was still getting used to the idea that they'd been in the same hell, when he used to think they weren't even on the same planet.

But this time, he wasn't going to meddle. Veld pulled the WRO card that Reeve had given him out of his pocket and left it conspiciously on a stone outside. Maybe someone would find it.

Maybe not.


End file.
